I Will Fear No Evil
by Leila Secret-Smith
Summary: Dick was in motion before Jason had even tipped completely over the ledge, before Bruce's agonized scream of "JASON!" even echoed over the comms. There was nothing slow about this moment, despite Dick's laser-focus on Jay's falling body. His little brother's name hammered through his skull with every frenetic pulse of his heart. Dick wouldn't fail. He would never fail Jason again.


**Dick's POV just prior to and during "Through the Valley of the Shadow of Death"**

* * *

Electricity flowed through Dick in violent, white-hot pulses, tearing a scream from his lips. Tim and Damian shrieked on either side of him, their suspended bodies jerking like hooked fish in the electric current. Dick shut his eyes against the sight. Torture was bad enough without seeing his little brothers in the same pain. He dug his fingers into the ropes that held him off the floor by his wrists and waited for it to end.

An eternity later, the pain stopped. The three vigilantes went limp, panting for breath. The Joker laughed manically, walking down the line and tauntingly tapping his crowbar against their exhausted bodies. Dick gritted his teeth as the cold metal 'plinked' against hip, resisting the temptation to lash out and kick the madman in the jaw. He could do it, but all it would likely earn them was another jolt of electricity.

The Joker ranted again in earnest, waving his hands about demonstrably. Dick rolled his head to the side and used the moment to subtly test the strength of his bindings. He cursed silently when they didn't give at all, though he wasn't surprised by their durability. Joker tended to be the best-prepared of the Rogues even on his most unstable days. He glanced subtly to either side. Tim's face was sweaty and pale but utterly impassive; Dick could see the furious calculations he was making in his head by the tension in his arms. Damian, on the other hand, was snarling openly at the Joker. Dick just thanked the heavens that Robin was wise enough to keep his fury nonverbal.

He eyed the table, fifteen or so yards away, that held their confiscated gear. They hadn't been fully stripped, but Joker knew how to counter the tracking devices embedded in their suits that _hadn't_ been fried by electricity. Batman would have to track them down manually. For about the millionth time that night, Dick cursed himself for being too relaxed on patrol. He should never have been so playful when he _knew_ the Joker was out of Arkham. It was his fault they were in this position.

"But you know what?" The Joker giggled, eyeing each of the captive vigilantes. "I think it's time to get _serious_."

Dick stiffened at the word, a boulder-sized weight settling in the pit of his stomach. He saw out of the corner of his eye that Tim stiffened too. The Joker said he was going to get _serious_? This was bad. He swallowed hard.

This was very, very bad.

"None of you bats ever seem to _learn_ ," Joker sighed dramatically. The crowbar was gone, replaced by a knife, and he spun it almost idly as he talked. "It's bad enough that Robin number two came back, but then you had to go and _redeem_ him. Pah!" He spat, casting a cold glare at the vigilantes. "My best work, ruined by you do-gooders! All that delightful mayhem, wasted!"

A bead of cold sweat dripped from Dick's hair onto the back of his suit collar, seeping between the slick fabric and his hypersensitive skin. Jason? What did this have to do with Jason?

"I think your daddy needs to learn another _lesson_ ," he said. Before anyone could even flinch, Joker had the knife to Damian's exposed neck. Dick's heart went still in his chest, a cold, visceral fear filling his veins like liquid nitrogen. "What do you think?" The madman's eyes were full of malice. "Two birds with one _crowbar_ , for old time's sake?"

Dick's heart started again, beating double time as his mind raced furiously. He tensed, preparing to move.

 _No, not Damian, not again!_

Joker drew the knife back, preparing to bring it down in a fatal blow. Damian erupted into a flurry of furious, cursed snarls, kicking out, but he didn't have enough momentum to do anything.

Tim threw himself against his restraints with a shout. Dick did the same.

The skylight burst inward with a thunderous crash.

"DON'T YOU FUCKING _TOUCH HIM_!"

 _Jason!_ Dick's head snapped upward, though he hardly knew what he was seeing. Red Hood plummeted from the skylight, framed against the pitch-dark night by shards of glimmering glass. One arm was extended, pointed straight at—

The Joker's head snapped back. His body hit the floor with a thump that Dick couldn't hear over the sudden roaring in his ears.

Dick's disbelieving gaze followed Jason as he hit the ground and exploded into motion, but his mind was far away. He turned and looked at the chillingly still form of the madman who had tormented them for so long. His thoughts stalled and tangled up, running in ineffectual circles, like a computer with an error. Jason screamed in the background, accompanied by gunshots and the sounds of intense destruction.

 _You bastards! You would'a let him kill a kid! I'll kill all of you! I'll KILL ALL OF YOU! I'll see you in HELL!_

The Joker… was dead?

Tim was frantically trying to free himself, yelling 'Nightwing!' over and over as he struggled against the ropes holding him off the floor. On his other side, Damian was utterly still, his face turned toward Joker's body. Dick forced himself to look away.

In front of them, Jason was a one-man hurricane of fury and vengeance. Dick watched numbly as his sort-of brother took out knees and hands and legs—not heads or hearts.

He wasn't killing the goons. Why wasn't he killing the goons?

He watched as a bullet hit Jason's hip, sending out a spray of scarlet blood; the Red Hood didn't seem to feel it.

The last goon went down against a splintered crate with a howl of agony, blood gushing from his shattered kneecaps. Jason vanished in the space of a blink, only glass and blood and downed men serving as proof he had even been there in the first place.

The world snapped back into focus.

Freed from the threat of torture, Dick contorted his body enough to shimmy out of the restraints and drop to the soaking floor. Beneath his feet, fresh blood mixed with the dirty water that had conducted electricity into their bodies. He darted unsteadily over to the table and snatched up his comm before moving to free his brothers. "Batman," he gasped as the earpiece crackled to life. His hands shook badly as he reached for Tim's restraints. "Batman, please—" He wasn't quite sure how he meant to finish the plea.

Tim dropped to the floor with a wet 'splat' and a drunken stagger.

" _Nightwing!"_

Dick nearly fell over when he heard the gravelly, desperate voice in his ear. Tim steadied him and they held each other up in a tangle of shaking limbs.

"Batman," he repeated, forcing himself to stand up and help Tim get Damian down without further injuring the boy's dislocated shoulder. His hands still shook as he considered how to tell his father what had just happened. What his brother had just done. Damian—bright, beautiful, _alive_ Damian—growled a string of curses as his legs gave out and he half-collapsed into the dirty water. Tim murmured nonsense as he tried to hoist his younger brother up with shaking arms.

Dick closed his eyes and braced himself. "Batman… the Joker is dead. Red Hood killed him."

* * *

Jason was on top of Wayne Enterprises. Jason was sitting alone above thousands of feet of open air, and Dick couldn't help the cold pit that opened up in his stomach at the sight. He, Tim, and Damian set up in a close perimeter around their estranged brother's position, ready for whatever he was going to do. Dick listened intently as Bruce spoke. He could see Tim a few rooftops away, ramrod straight as he listened too.

"Yeah," Jason said, his voice dreamy and detached. "He's dead. It's—it's enough. It's _finally enough_."

Dick blanched, sucking in a horrified breath. He braced himself against the roof ledge, knees suddenly weak. He knew that tone. He _knew that tone,_ and it broke his heart into a thousand tiny pieces to hear his little brother use it.

Batman seemed to realize the same thing. "Hood, move away from the ledge."

"What if I don't want to?"

 _No. No, no, no, no!_

Dick was in motion before any conscious thought had formed, scrambling for a position that would let him catch Jason when— _if_ he fell. If he jumped. If he _jumped_. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Tim and Damian follow.

 _Please, God, no, not again. Not like this, Little Wing, please._

"Jason." Bruce's voice rasped through the comms, strangled by terror. "Jason please, come here."

 _He's not going to_ , Dick thought, trembling. His eyes stayed glued to the tiny, dark figure of Jason, who had turned toward Bruce. _He's not going to, Bruce!_ Jason snarled, and Dick knew he was using the gun to keep Batman at a distance.

"Stay there. Don't you _dare_ come closer."

"Jason, please. You're not thinking straight—"

Dick winced, knowing Jason's reaction to Bruce's clumsy plea before he even spoke. Still, his brother's harsh, mocking laugh grated on his heart. His clammy grip on the grappling gun tightened until his bones creaked.

"No. No, no, no, I'm thinking straight for the first time in a long time, B." Jason's rasping intake of breath was audible even through the comms. "I-I should never have come back. I should have _stayed dead_. But I didn't. And you know what? Now that the clown is dead, it's _worth it. It's all worth it._ All the _pain_ , all the fighting, all the indecision—it was _worth it_. I-I shoulda' killed him years ago. I should never have listened to you, because _you know what?_ I realized that you're _never_ going to love me again, if you ever did in the first place. I'll never be anything but a screw-up to you, a fucking _failed Robin_ , the _dead soldier, a Good Soldier!"_

Jason stopped, and Dick took the opportunity to speak; he could barely force the words out through the painful tightness in his throat. "We're standing by, B. If he j—if he jumps, we've got him."

Batman sank to his knees and pulled the cowl back, rustling cloth and crunching gravel the only indication of his actions. "Jason. Jason _stop, please._ " His voice was choked and trembling.

No, that wasn't Batman—that was _Bruce_.

Dick had been with their adopted father the longest, except for Alfred, but for all the near-fatal situations they had been in, he had _never_ heard Bruce sound so utterly terrified. Maybe there was something about watching his second son teeter on the edge of death; maybe it was that he was practically helpless to stop it; maybe it was because he _could_ stop it, but only if he knew what to say; maybe it was because he _didn't_ know what to say.

"I know I haven't been a good fath—father, mentor, a good _anything_ when it comes to you. _I'm sorry. I'm so sorry._ But Jay, I—I've never, not once, regretted taking you in. I've never regretted the fact that _you came back_. I'm _so glad you're alive,_ Jason _._ So please, please, don't do this. Come away from the ledge, _please._ "

Dick cried, muffling choked sobs in the palm of his hand. He couldn't help it; the sheer, raw desperation in Bruce's voice, the utter sincerity of his _apology_ … it was too much. He glanced at Tim, barely catching the glint of tears as they leaked awkwardly from beneath the younger vigilante's heavy cowl. Even Damian—growling, insensitive Damian—was utterly still, his mouth pressed into a line so thin it was practically invisible.

"Please, Jay," Dick whispered into his palm as the silence stretched. He knew his brother couldn't hear him, but he couldn't help the desperate plea. " _Please_."

"I—I…"

He drew in a shuddering breath and held it, hand still pressed tightly against his lips.

"I'm just so _tired._ " Jay's head dropped. "I just want it to be over."

 _No._

There was a clattering sound, staticy over the comms, and it took a moment for Dick to realize that Jason had dropped his gun. His heart leapt into his throat and stayed there.

 _No!_

"Bye, Dad."

Dick was in motion before Jason had even tipped completely over the ledge, before Bruce's agonized scream of "JASON!" even echoed over the comms. There was nothing slow about this moment, despite Dick's laser-focus on Jay's falling body. His little brother's name hammered through his skull with every frenetic pulse of his heart.

 _Jason. Jason. Jason._

Tim was right beside him, preparing for a tandem catch to hopefully lessen the damage to Jason's already-injured body. Damian was beneath, backup in case they failed.

Dick wouldn't fail. He would never fail Jason again.


End file.
